Elements of the Research Report
The writer's job is to make it as easy as possible for multiple readers to find information in a report. Formal elements are tools we use to accomplish this.
The Title Page
Includes title, reader's name, writer's name, date, and organization
Title needs to be complete, give reader specific topic you are writing about, don't be vague
Table Of Contents
The headings listed should be the same headings used in the report. Most word processors have the capability of automatically generating and formatting a Table of Contents.
List Of Illustrations/Figures
This is separate from the Table of Contents and lists all of your figures. Each illustration, visual, table, chart, etc. needs to be identified with a figure number and descriptive caption. The caption and documentation must appear below the figure, table, or illustration.
The Abstract
A brief summary of the report -- should be no more than 5% of length of the total text. Think about the abstract as explaining what your report is about in "twenty-five words or less."
Directed primarily to readers who are, at least, somewhat familiar with the subject. Therefore, you can use specialized terminology freely without definitions, etc. The Abstract should be single-spaced.
Text
Text should be double-spaced, unless otherwise specified by your instructor. Do not add extra spaces between paragraphs; indent instead. Use heading/subheadings to help guide the reader. Number the pages (note: front matter uses lower case Roman numerals, text and end matter are consecutively numbered using Arabic numerals).
Visuals
In your text, visuals should appear within the body of text. Also, you need to reference your visuals within the text. For example, in your text you might state: "Figure 1 shows this relationship." Then, the figure should appear as close to its reference as possible. Visuals should contain a caption and documentation, which appear below the visual.
Glossary
Alphabetical list of definitions and acronyms. If you defined a term or phrase in your text, it should be in the glossary. Also, don’t forget to place acronyms in the glossary.
For lengthy reports, the glossary is an invaluable aid for the reader. For example, if you define a term on the second page of a report and then use it again on page 18, the reader would have to page back through the report to find the meaning of the term, without the glossary. Realistically, readers do not search out definitions. Rather, they "guess" at the word, using the context, and proceed. However, with a glossary, the reader is more inclined to check the word’s meaning. Obviously, this makes for more effective writing.
A simple way to format the Glossary is to use the table function in Word. Use a two-column table and you will end up with a glossary that is similar to one in the sample report.
Bibliography
The Bibliography is inclusive. That is, it includes all research materials that you consulted, whether you cited those materials or not. Arrange your bibliographic entries alphabetically. See the Style Guide for more details on the formatting the bibliography.
Titles of articles or books: Often, students are confused as to what to capitalize for a book or article title, especially since many of the online databases use varying styles of capitalization. For example, titles should appear as upper and lower case, not as all upper case. According to The Chicago Manual of Style , the first and last words of the title, plus all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinating clauses (if, because, as, that, etc.) should be capitalized. Articles (a. an, the), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, for, nor), and prepositions, regardless of length, are shown in lower case unless they are the first or last word of the title or subtitle. No word in a title should be in all upper case, regardless of how it appears in the original, unless it is an acronym.
Page Numbering
The pages preceding the report proper, the front matter, should be numbered using lower-case Roman numerals. The front matter includes the title page (however, a number does not appear on the title), table of contents, list of illustrations, and abstract. The remaining pages of the report use Arabic numerals.
Appendix
The Appendix section of a report is useful for presenting peripheral information. This is information that relates to report, but would not be appropriate for inclusion in the report. For example, if you were to undertake a survey using a questionnaire, you may want to include in the Appendix the questionnaire, the raw data, the statistical analysis, etc. The Appendix is not required for your final report.
Word’s Formatting Features
| Footnoting |
Place your cursor where you want the footnote to appear. Click on Insert in the toolbar and select Footnote. A pane should appear at the bottom of the page. Be sure to select the Footnote option, rather than Endnotes. Type in the footnote information. This feature will automatically position the footnote at the bottom of the page (Note: in some older versions of Word, footnotes can sometimes "spill over" to the next page. Do not concern yourself with this.) Also, if you later move text from one position to another, footnote numbers are automatically updated.
| Bibliography |
Bibliographic entries should have a hanging indent. Place your cursor anywhere within the bibliographic entry. Click on Format in the toolbar and select Paragraph. Under Indentation, click on the button for Special and select Hanging Indent. The default setting is 0.5". However, from an esthetic standpoint, it is best to change that to 0.25". (Note: You can also use the Style feature to create a bibliography style.)
| Page Numbering |
The front matter of a report (title page, table of contents, list of figures, and abstract) uses lower case Roman numerals. The rest of the report uses standard numbering. To achieve this, you do not need to create two files. Rather, at the end of the front matter, insert a page break. When doing this, select Section Break Types/Next Page. This separates the file into sections. You can now format the individual sections. So, for page numbering, in the front matter, you can select Insert/Page Numbering and select the proper format and have it apply to this section only. The same applies to your text and bibliography.
| Heading Styles |
Headings should be used within your reports to distinguish topics and sections of a report. You can manually create your headings or use the heading feature in Word. If you examine the toolbar, you will see that Normal is your default template style. Clicking on that box will display the other available templates. Typically, this has at least three levels of headings. Most students use the default settings in Word. However, you can modify styles or add new styles. To do so, place your cursor within the text of the style you want to modify. Then, click on Format in the toolbar and select Styles and Formatting. Information on the current style will be displayed. Click on Modify and make sure you check the box Add to Template. Now, you can modify the font, paragraph, etc.
| Table of Contents |
Provided you have used style templates for your headings, as described above, you can automatically generate a table of contents. To do this, on the page following the title page, type Table of Contents (use boldface and the Normal style and select a type size appropriate for a heading). Then, place your cursor on the next line and select Insert/Index and Tables. Select the Table of Contents tab. This will give you options as to format of the table and how many levels of headings you want to display. Make your choices and click on OK. This will automatically generate your table of contents. You can periodically update this if you move things around by placing your cursor anywhere within the table and repeating the Insert/Index and Tables process. Keep in mind that the Table of Contents should contain only those elements that follow it.
| Figures and Tables |
When using graphics, tables, pictures, and other types of visual devices in a report, you need to provide two elements. One is a caption that identifies the contents of the graphic. The other is to provide documentation for the graphic or table. Documentation and examples of figures are contained in the Style Guide . Captions can be generated automatically. Place your cursor beneath the figure, click on Insert/Caption. A pane will open with Figure 1: already generated. Simply type in the caption text and click on OK. My suggestion is to use this feature, even for tables. This makes the rest much easier because now you can automatically generate a List of Figures. Again, at the top of a page, type List of Figures (use one of your heading styles so that this appears in your table of contents). Then place your cursor on the next line and select Insert/Index and Tables. Now select Table of Figures.
Editing and Reviewing
Two features that some instructors use in their feedback to you are the editing and reviewing functions.
| Editing |
At the bottom of the Word pane is TRK. Double click on that to activate the editing feature. Right click on TRK to make sure that Highlight Changes is selected. When place your cursor over an editing change, it should display the author of the change and what the change is.
| Reviewing |
To provide comments within a report, select Insert/Comments from the toolbar. Placing your cursor over the comment indicator on the page should provide a pop-up window with the comment. Or, you can select View/Comments from the toolbar and see all the comment in a separate pane.
You can also activate this from the View/Toolbar command. Just select Reviewing and an additional toolbar will appear at the top of the document.